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Video: “He’s confusing me now, I thought he was Labour” – Gogglebox shreds Starmer’s approach to ‘opposition’

Almost universal contempt among programme members for Starmer’s unwillingness to take a position on anything

Keir Starmer’s approach to ‘opposition’ has been shredded by members of the Gogglebox programme who watched his evasive performance on last weekend’s Marr show.

The show’s armchair viewers gave an object lesson in what ordinary people think of Starmer’s contortions to avoid taking a position on any issue – and his unconditional support for a PM who has refused even to express regret for the needless sacrifice of tens of thousands of UK lives. It was a brutal verdict:

Everyone, from the working-class to the upper middle, reacted with derision, with one woman saying Starmer had her confused because she thought he was Labour – and another comparing him to ‘pasander’, the blandest of bland curries.

If Starmer wants to get anywhere near Downing Street, he needs to start actually opposing – and actually standing for something. His centrist allies in the media can fawn dishonestly over him as much as they want, but acting like vapour at best – and worse, enabling a hard-right Tory – has just been shown to be as unpalatable as the SKWAWKBOX has always said it is.

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67 comments

  1. I don’t watch the programme and hold no brief for Kermit or Labour, but to me it looked more like a Tory party political broadcast than a fly on the wall ‘reality’ show about square-eyes’ watching habits.
    Have they similarly dogpiled Tories?
    If they did the same to Corbyn and not May or Johnson I’m pissed off. What TV channel was it on?

    1. I’m not surprised you don’t watch it, Gogglebox is on Ch4, not BBC4. I believe they allow a range of political views on the programme but all of those contributing hold the Queen in high esteem.
      Your comments show how elitist you are. There are real characters along with twats on the show, just like real life.

    2. lundiel, it’s not elitist to be selective about what one watches on TV.
      The elite maintains its dominance by distracting us from important matters with cheap-to-make entertainment and cheap-shot headlines – the cheaper, shallower, catchier and more distracting the better. Better still if it can insert the odd anti-left rant in an amusing, catchy quip that can be repeated at tea break next day. The fact that the Tories win elections with such cheap, pathetic soundbites should be an embarrassment to us all.
      It’s the constant effort to replicate the success of the S*n’s “turn out the lights” mood-catching, election-winning headline.
      Thinking is not elitist and shunning the shallow doesn’t help the elite oppress us – on the contrary.

      Being distracted by populist pap on TV is what enables our oppression.
      “Are you not entertained?” “Bread and circuses” – remember? It’s how they’ve always manipulated the vote.
      We should be demanding better education so that the next generation are too smart to be distracted from their oppression by circuses.
      The ideal of the elite is that we should be just smart enough to do our jobs and make them richer – AND NO MORE.
      Fuck that and fuck you, dimwit.

      1. “We should be demanding better education so that the next generation are too smart to be distracted from their oppression by circuses.”
        Thanks for proving my point.

      2. PS. Of those featured in the clip, I know that 8 of them are university educated. I don’t know about the rest.
        The vote isn’t manipulated by “populist pap”, it’s done by parents, teachers in schools and universities, journalists, social scientists, film-makers, broadcasting organisation hierarchies, newspaper owners, religious leaders, police commissioners, army/navy/RAF officers, heads of corporations, financiers, civil servants and political careerists.

      3. The “education’ to which you refer is a large part of the problem: it is no coincidence that Thatcherism and its variants have all thrived during the period in which access to ‘education’ has significantly increased. The ruling class does not provide education in order to enlighten humanity but in order to indoctrinate the masses into accepting its rule and viewing their exploitation as preferable to unemployment.
        The Labour movement has been growing steadily weaker ever since the school leaving age increased and idle centrists consoled themselves that the State would carry out the educational work which ought to be the primary task of every Socialist.
        People like Sir Hair and Mandelson always oppose socialist education because their own views and ‘principles’ are those of Capitalist society.
        It is not just “Bread and Circuses” but Empire worship, following orders and understanding-as all educated people do-that there are no alternatives.

      4. Education has been dumbed down to the point where graduates learn what to think instead of how to think. That suits the establishment perfectly – enough education to be productive but not enough to wonder what might be behind the curtain.
        The dumbing down of the media happened in parallel while society was denied and greed distracted so many – all obsessed with vast commissions, getting ahead, getting a better job, Porsche, new house, wife, husband, shoulder pads, phone, superyacht, private island, – just more stuff to distract from the emptiness of living in a society with its only purpose being consumption to excess.
        Now we have a society in which a 30-year-old who isn’t a millionaire is a failure and all that’s behind the curtain is another curtain and then you die.

  2. I don’t watch the programme. Nor, The Andrew Marr Show. I can only go from that four minute clip, above. It was excruciating! Ignoring the comments from the ‘viewers’, that interview was a disaster. He seemed unprepared and confused.

    He’s the leader of the Labour Party, for goodness sake. Answers to Marr’s questions should have been on the tip of his tongue.

    Perhaps, the BoD briefing, beforehand, hadn’t been thorough enough. Or it had confused him.

    The leader of the Labour Party should, already, have his/her political road-map planned out. Ingrained, in his noggin.

    What is Keir Starmer’s political philosophy? I’ve been asking that question, on and off, for months. No one has come up with an answer, yet.

    ‘For the Many, Not the Few.’

    There’s a hint.

    1. I agree with comment. I too have only just seen this segment from Goggle box and it made me cringe and then very angry that this so called opposition leader appears to have forgotten his jo description. Disgraceful support for absolutely farcical Tory response to the Virus. Surely any Starmer voter would have been put off by this shamefully weak performance from Starmer.

  3. Far from it being similar a toerag broadcast it sums up what people up and down the country – and especially on here – think of the worthless bleeder.

    Should have cameras in mine for when the slimy rats on the telly .. or, in the interests of health and safety, the cameras staying intact and the footage taken being anywhere close to an acceptably broadcastable standard…perhaps not.

    As for facetiously calling him ‘Bruce Foresight’ he really ought to be more suitably called ‘Captain Gobshite’..

    I expect the apologist’ll be on later, after working out a (futile and risible) way of defending him from what is evidence of a cross-section of the general public’s perception of the polygonal-headed twerp.

  4. Vacuous, lacking vision, no policies (oh…except for being ‘patriotic’), stuffed shirt, mealy-mouthed anti-left . . . I could go on, but what’s the point? And that’s the question every socialist (ex) Labour supporter I know has been asking since Starmer took over. What’s the point? Labour has no point, led by a man who when interviewed by an incredulous Peston could not name ONE Labour policy, and then said the following:

    “We are not going to get into talking about policy in the middle of a pandemic.”

    (Yes, he did. He really did!)

    The central plank of Starmer’s policy is to commit to nothing in order that he can’t be criticised, hoping to achieve power through the back door simply because Johnson is so incompetent. But this facile cynical approach fails to take account of the fact that the Tories which ditch Johnson when the voters eventually begin to turn against him, which they will.

    Th most telling quote now regularly trotted out by Starmer, his own wee ‘Get Brexit done’ catch phrase, is his prefix to almost every comment whenever he’s asked about anything the government is doing is:

    “We support the government. . .”

    It says it all. The Labour opposition is no more. Cummings and Johnson must be laughing themselves to sleep every night.

    https://lovesexwomenmenpoliticspoetrylifedeath.wordpress.com/

    1. “We are not going to get into talking about policy in the middle of a pandemic.”
      What is wrong with that? It is the sensible thing to do. It is common sense. And it is an honourable approach for the opposition leader to take in a time of crisis.
      What Starmer is doing is pitching himself against Johnson, directly, not Labour against the Tories. This is not a time for ‘our policies are better than yours’. Starmer is going head to head with Johnson, projecting himself as ‘competent’ against ‘incompetent’, and the strategy is working. As Marr said in the first line of the interview, Labour are level in the polls with the Tories. That is because of Starmer.
      Johnson looks bad when compared to Starmer, because he is. I can see a time in the next few months when Johnson is sacked, or more likely, resigns. He will be blamed for a Brexit shambles or a virus out of control. I would not be surprised, if things get really bad, the Tories ask Starmer to form a government of national unity.
      The lack of analysis, on this site is depressing. The comments, priceless. Like Pavlov’s dugs. Keep it up boys.

      1. err he should have an alternative vision at this stage and come up with his own policies and views on the pandemic and the economic situation rather than repeating this incompetent governments response. what a waste of space this pathetic wet rag is!

      2. Richard MacKinnon,

        Your comment made me cringe, never mind Keith Starmer inducing projectile vomiting every time i even think of the fraud.

        However, let me just remind you, after the near miss of June 2017, when JC nearly ensured the Labour Party was the largest Party in Parliament, we were entertained by Rightists instructing us, both under car crash May and Clownmobile Bojo that if Labour had a Moderate Leader (Centrist Scum Leader) the Party would be ahead in the Polls by 20 points.

        Well, six months into the fraud Starmer’s tenure, with the worst UK government since the days of Lord Liverpool, Starmer is not 20 points ahead, rather, in the majority of Polls he’s still behind, but the gap is closing, which ain’t much of an endorsement given how ghastly Bojo and his crooks are.

        And, if you are a Tory and wish to retain power, well Starmer’s a real gift – and, if you think the Tories wont attack Starmer for being both a Liar and flipflopper, think again.

      3. “Starmer is going head to head with Johnson, projecting himself as ‘competent’ against ‘incompetent’, and the strategy is working. As Marr said in the first line of the interview, Labour are level in the polls with the Tories. That is because of Starmer.”
        Only in your dreams. Many people don’t even know who he is and what he says is instantly forgotten, which may be a good thing in a politician of his caliber but it won’t get him elected. Johnson has only bombed in the polls due to his handling of the crisis, something not used by Starmer. He (Starmer) had a duty to hold the government, its advisers and Public Health England to account for deaths in care homes and, IMO, their use of social scientists to manage public opinion and limiting ‘expert’ advice to Edinburgh and Imperial. He missed the chance to set that in people’s minds and let the people know he would have acted differently.
        “I would not be surprised, if things get really bad, the Tories ask Starmer to form a government of national unity.” The only time that is likely to happen is if they spot an easy chance to dump the blame on him. If Johnson goes, Gove and Hunt are ready to step up.
        You’ve got a bit of a nerve criticising the comments here, when your own are so plainly lacking.

      4. Labour are level in the polls with the Tories. That is because of Starmer.

        Whoopie-fucking-do…Level with the toerags eh? That’s some going, that. I remember Corbyn was miles ahead of a far more competent toerag government than this before stammer used his shithousery and threw the election.

        AND may’s government – as shite as they were – didn’t bollocks up the exams or make a disaster of this covid. This is THE worst government IN HISTORY and stammer’s ONLY level? Get the ticker tape & flags out, and strike up the band ffs…

        Look what they’ve got….a so-called leader who OPENLY BRAGS about sending letters of support to ther PM. A shadow healh secretary that looks like just william, sounds like orville the duck and is about as much friggin’ use and a shadow education secretary that makes the current SoS look like fucking einstein ffs.

        And you’re jerkin yerself silly about that?

        One word.

        Gobshite.

      5. Let’s have it right, he’s an oil slick masquerading as health secretary that looks like Just William, etc!

      6. Haha!

        True…And people thought stammer had a barnet full of the pomade? That ashworth fella’s got an industial-sized barrel of axle grease on his!!

        It’s unnatural. There must be another purpose for putting that much ‘lube’ on your bonce…😮

      7. And it’s not just his hair. His whole aura oozes it! 😀

      8. “What Starmer is doing is pitching himself against Johnson, directly, not Labour against the Tories. This is not a time for ‘our policies are better than yours’.”

        Wrong on two counts:
        First, Starmer v Johnson – Starmer is a personality vacuum and Johnson’s major asset is a likeable front.

        Second, if a global pandemic is not the time for policy to take precedence over personality, WHEN THE FUCK IS the time?

      9. I can see no reason for you to read a site such as this. It is your right of course but since you are probably a tinger, tigger or worse no one here who has made it to the end of your post without hanging themselves cares. XX

  5. I didn’t know what was the biggest comedy routine ,but the Wayne Rooney person on the left of the screen gave me more laughs than the clown knight from ultra conservative oxted in Surrey….I can certainly see David mcNivan and the point he made regarding a as party political broadcast for the Conservative party.ITs even more vicious than a live broadcast from the clown knight and his misfits who dominate the Labour party…..I suppose that knightly and his chums think any publicity is better than being ignored..but in this instance I think even more will jump ship.after viewing this meltdown of the Tory tribute act.The Steve H can you not keep him in a cupboard somewhere and let him out for wee -wees.

    1. How did he win the election?I can see reasons for people to not vote Labour but I cannot understand why the fat, degenerate won? Regards

  6. The clip keeps buffering every two seconds, then stays in that mode for ages before playing again for two more seconds, then buffering again. In 5 minutes I heard about 30 seconds of it before giving up completely.

  7. My one dis-agreement with the armchair commentators. Starmers lack of oppostion is due to him being part of the establishment, he is very conservative, he sits with Kissinger on the Trilateral commission. It has nothing to do with patriotism or gentlemanly conduct during a pandemic. If he cared about people he would not “expect the children back to school with rising case rates. Otherwise the comments are good.

  8. Thatchers greatest creation lost us 5 million votes , Red Tory Blue Tory
    What’s the point of voting when the same fuckers get in
    Starmer is aping the Tories, race to the bottom, no policies, national white peoples party
    After 2015 GE Labour membership exploded before JC stood for leadership, it was a visceral scream for something different
    JC answered that cry
    Now get back to the day job

    1. Yeah, I see what you mean – a bit like Ed Davey replaced David Lloyd George, right?

    2. Spitting Image hasn’t replaced Spitting Image. And no one has replaced Frankie Boyle.

  9. And the centrist gangsters STILL think their continuityconservative Billionaires’ Patsy, Sir Keir Rodney Starmer, will win votes.

    Incorrigible!

    Sir Keir will destroy Labour, collapse membership AND reduce vote

    Bad news.

      1. When only 19 PLP MPs ignore his instruction to abstain on a Forces Bill that disregards/breaks International Law and the Billionaire’s Press persists in its support for him (really for David Rockefeller and themselves) and when 1 in 2.68 party members don’t realise how wrong they were to vote for him, the Embarrassment looks horribly Fixed (not temporary).

    1. You keep repeating this quertboi, but I’d be interested in you elaborating in respect of the first bit – ie that Starmer will destroy the LP. I mean given that the party is now fully back in the hands of the red Tory Blairites, then it was ‘destroyed’ the moment Starmer won the leadership election, and is now fully on board with the Establishment and the staus quo. In other words it has ALREADY been destroyed as a progressive party, so what do you mean – given all I’ve just said – when you say he WILL destroy the party?

      And whatever you mean – and as Sandra says (a few comments up the page) in effect – what do Starmer and the red Tories care anyway if – as they are of course – their blue Tory buddies are in power and running the show anyway.

    2. Chuckle!! Have a read of Andrew Rawnsley’s article, in today’s Observer.

      If you wish to leave a Comment, don’t mention Gogglebox – oh – and be respectful. Don’t attempt to denigrate, either, The Guardian, The Observer or Rawnsley.

      The days of ‘Comment is Free – Facts are Sacred’ appear to have come to an end.

      Don’t, even, bother with the thread underneath the article.

  10. Can someone remind Temporary Embarrassment twas Blairites what destroyed us in Scotland, twas him what destroyed us in England and Wales
    And now for the final act, bet you he supports No Deal

  11. And I’ll say t again, future is assured, demographics in our favour and some very good younguns coming through
    Just need to get from here to there
    FFS

  12. Can we get back to the day job of winning the NEC, then changing the rules to allow next leader to clear out Cockwombles
    Starting with TGC

  13. Gogglebox forensically burns Kier Starmer and he fully deserved it.

    He’s got no answers, no values, no policies and as an alternative government/ PM in waiting, that’s shite ! He should stick to court rooms, he’s a shite politician/ opposition leader and the Red wall voters have now seen it.

    Red wall voters don’t owe him/ Labour a vote, they simply won’t go out and vote if he is the alternative to the Torys.

    As in the Gogglebox clip, she said she was confused, she thought he was Labour. There, right there, was Labours huge warning !! We all know what the Torys are about and what we get if they’re voted in. Starmer is a fox in sheeps clothes and certainly NOT Labour

    1. Foggy,
      “Starmer is a fox in sheeps clothes and certainly NOT Labour”.
      Well, maybe you think that. But the reality is, he is the leader of the British Labour Party. Fact. Suck it up.
      Its time you lot wake up to the day light of reality and start talking what is.

      1. Suck it up ? How old are you ? ! Is that how you, NuLabour, oops sorry, UnLabour will win back red wall voters ?

      2. But the reality is, he is the leader of the British Labour Party. Fact. Suck it up.

        Spoken like a true bliarite gobshite. Yes, stammer’s the punishment for the plebs daring to elect a socialist leader previously, and now they must all pay their penance, and bow before their leader.

        Suck it up….Who the fuck do you think you are, dickhead?

      3. A lot of us do. Our views will be found in the comments sections. X

  14. The Toffee (597)
    27/09/2020 at 7:54 am ,
    One last time.
    Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KCB QC MP is a British politician and former lawyer who is Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition.
    Look Toffee, you can be as abusive as much as you like. It does matter to me I’m not intimidated. It’s amusing and its a compliment, when others lose it in an argument. My best advice? Tone it down. You sound a bit deranged.

    1. Not on here he doesn’t.

      You, on the other hand, sound like a bit of a cunt.

      1. Timfrom,
        ‘Not on here he doesn’t’? What are you referencing? Who doesn’t do what on here?
        I’m guessing. I presume you have Keir Starmer in mind while you bang away on your keyboard.
        I just read this article in the Daly Mail. Labour are 3 points ahead of the Conservatives.
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8776611/Labour-secures-three-point-lead-Conservatives-Keir-Starmer-beating-Boris-Johnson.html
        He must be doing something right. ( I assume you are in agreement that it is better for Labour to be ahead in the polls).
        PS Your last comment, not nice. Childish name calling. Im surprised the moderator allowed it. But then again, there is a lot of abusive comments posted on this site, (has Skwawky has given up on ‘moderation’).
        Any way Timfrom rest assured I am not intimidated. I know you would never say it to my face.

      2. Naughty. Max is going to come to you when you are sleeping. He walks at night with Madame Stiletto. ☮️

    2. Oh, mckinnon… You’d love to think you’ve got a rise outta me, wouldn’t you? Unlucky lad, I hold you in the deepest contempt that it’s possible for anyone or anything to be held in.

      I’ve seen your type come and go, lad…The type who’s daddy was a copper and used to think they were better than all the other kids parents. I’ll bet it’s that attitude of yours got you bullied at school. And it’s obvious you haven’t grown out of it now, even though daddy’s not a copper anymore.

      I’ll bet you threw your buttplug at the computer screen, and shrieked ‘leave lovely career stammer alone, you rotters’ when you was watching that gogglebox clip.

      Still, if you wanna extol the virtues of a morally defunct, politically promiscuous slimeball, knock yourself out (Before someone else does)

      So here’s some advice for you dicky, try lording it over people with your ‘Suck it up’ attitude in real life, mckinnon; let’s see how long after uttering ‘One last time…’ it is, before your undescended testicles collide with your thyroid.

      Gobshite.

      1. You’re on good form. Do you remember when coppers ran boys footie clubs, had great lumps of hair sticking out of their ears and nostrils, birched you for scrumping and were war hero paedophiles. Never did me any harm. Nurse, Nurse. Best wishes.

    1. Richard MacKinnon is well known to those of us who used to read and post on that sadly long-abandoned, Jon Lansman-owned Left discussion site, ‘Left Futures’. He posted with troll-like regularity then, but , his irritating, ‘school prefect-knows best’ style of know-all Right Wing cliche-speak, kept being derailed by his regularly exposed stunning historical and political laughable ignorance. He kept assuring us socialists that ‘capitalism had always existed – even in the Stone Age’, and a host of other gems ! He went quiet for simply ages after the huge electoral gains of the 2017 General Election, having assured all of us that Labour under, Jeremy would be utterly trounced. Anyway, Richard’s Right Wing dimwit tail is back up now, after four years of insider Labour Right sabotage and an unremitting MSM smear campaign – plus the Labour Left suicidally being bullied into adopting the disastrous Remain and 2nd Referendum policy in 2019, has finally done for Corbyn and the Left within Labour, and the Trilateral Commission’s creature, Starmer, and his careerist cronies , are back in total charge of the reborn Blairite Labour Party. And well he might be chuffed , The Tory troll, given the epochal defeat we on the Left have experience A defeat partly because of the craven unwillingness to fight the Right of the always submissive, retreating, Corbyn Leadership Circle, and also partly due to the crap Left Liberal politics of much of what passes for the UK ‘Left’, and its continuing unconditional love for the entirely neoliberal EU, unlimited Freedom of Movement, and its often bonkers identity politics obsessions.

      As others have said, in a situation where the Johnson-led Tory government’s utter corruption, cronyism and extraordinary incompetence ( eg, the latest version Track & Trace App misses out 30% of positive results in England !!) in the midst of an unprecedented (since 1918) global pandemic is obvious to all but the most blinkered citizens, that the Starmer-led NuLabour Party is only a few points ahead in yet another of the Guardian/Observer financed dodgy polls (well within the normal margin of error) would be trumpeted by the centrist press as ‘utterly risible’ if Jeremy Corbyn was currently in charge ! Whereas the dimwit woodentop neoliberal Starmer is lauded as a statesman of the first rank by his press fanboys and girls for achieving basically NOTHING since he has been leader ! Sadly for the Guardianista fantasists Labour will never recapture the 40 vital lost Scottish seats, or most of our old English Heartland seats, with the same Blairite Tory-lite politics that lost Scotland in the first place (in 2015 – pre Jeremy Corbyn, note) . And so a Starmerite Tory-lite Labour Party will never again form a UK government. And the next round of May local elections will give Labour such a drubbing, that the ‘Labour rapidly reviving under Starmer’ slogan of almost the entire MSM, across the spectrum, will be shown to be utter bullshit.

      1. A bit off topic – I imagine most people got the same email I got today from NHS Test and Trace with an invitation to download the app.
        “The app requires operating system 13.5 or above if you have an Apple iPhone. It requires Android 6.0 or above if you have an Android phone.”
        I don’t happen to agree with this throwaway, planned-obsolescence society and I’m proud of the fact that my old Samsung S4 runs Android 5.0.1 and my iPad 4 runs iOS 10.3.4.
        Poorer people are also more likely to be running these perfectly usable older operating systems – I don’t care a bit about not having access to the app but some people may.

      2. JPENNEY,
        Hiya, nice to catch up again.
        Regarding your comments above. Where to start? That is quite a journey in two paragraphs.
        Maybe I should just say, I’ve never been a school prefect and I’ve never voted Tory. (I’ve only voted for one political party in my life. Now I don’t even bother voting).
        I was a contributor to Left Futures back then. I was fascinated by Jon Lansman. I could never work out what he was about. Momentum? To me Momentum was like a parasite on the body politik. Maybe if Jeremy had seen it that way? But any way that is of no consequence now.
        It was good fun at the time (Corbyn getting elected by mistake. Remember JPENNEY, we imagined the conversation between Jeremy and Diane, the night he found out he was party leader. That was funny. ‘What am I going to do’? ‘I don’t know, better phone John, he’ll know’), Fond memories, but all good things come to an end.
        Anyway nice to hear from you again.
        Oh, nearly forgot, if one guy trades a flint arrow for his neighbours bear skin, that’s capitalism.
        Just the same as any transaction whether it be today or 10,000 years ago. Time doesn’t change anything. Same rules apply.

      3. No, the birth of capitalism wasn’t trade.
        It was one cave dweller discovering that rubbing the point of his new spear really fast on another piece of wood to sharpen and harden it made smoke and then fire.
        Decided it’d be really nice to retire from hunting and gathering, rule the tribe and have first choice of females.
        Extracted promises from tribe in return for fire (patent pending) that he and all his descendants never have to work again until the end of time.

        “Otherwise you can all freeze your tits off and eat raw meat, fuckers.”

        That’s capitalism.

      1. It came out much later in section. it had nothing to with yours.sorry but it came out as demented. Regards

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